Tom was just relaxing on his bed with Marshmallow curled up on his stomach, deep in thought. Naturally, his brain was just going back to what had happened at Ludo's castle. Toffee had just disappeared, but since he'd shown such good regeneration, surely he hadn't died? All the monsters had been missing as well.

And then there was the fact of there only being half of the star, now. He wasn't sure what that meant, but he was sure that it was going to be a problem . . . probably. It was probably going to be a problem.

Try saying that five times fast, he thought with a grin.

He was tracing his finger across the missing half, as he'd taken to doing, when it floated up of its own accord. He frowned and sat up as it hovered in front of him. What the—?

Then, just as suddenly, it shot out of the room. He instantly followed it. It had gone to the bathroom first. How could he tell? Why, Marco's girlish shriek, of course. Then both boys were running through the house, Marco only wearing a towel.

The wand ricocheted around the hallway, knocking down a painting and going into Marco's room before flying right back out. "What's up with the wand?" Marco demanded.

Tom shrugged. "It just started doing . . . this." It blew past him and downstairs. Marco was busy freaking out about that when it shot right back up, towards Tom's face. He pulled back just in time, feeling the breeze of it passing in front of his face. He blinked. Well. That happened.

The wand flew into Star's room and into the spell book, which caught it and flew into the closet, shoving Marco in along with it. The human just had enough time to scream, "My towel!" before the door shut.

Tom ran to the door, but the knob didn't turn. "Why isn't this working?" he asked.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a second," Marco said. "I'm not decent."

"Ah. Right." He grabbed the fallen towel and wiggled it in through the cracks. He heard Marco sigh in relief, and then they both tried to open the door, but it wasn't working. "Seriously, what's going on?"

"It's locked."

Tom rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I figured that out, genius. But, uh . . . to be honest, I usually use the wand to open this door, but that got eaten by the book." He stepped back and tried to think of a way out that wouldn't end up with him frustrated and throwing things at the door.

He peered through the keyhole. Hmm. Where was the key? "Hey, Marco? Can you see if there's a key in there, maybe? I'll look around out here."

"Got it."

He started ruffling through the room, and he found a key, but it wasn't the right size. And, as he was looking into the keyhole, a little blue face poked out. "What are you doing?" the little guy asked.

"WHA—!" He jumped backwards, holding the tiny key defensively. "Who are you?"

"You don't remember me? Glossaryck?"

Right. Glossaryck. Creator of the Magical High Commission Glossaryck. "Oh. Um. Yeah, right. Glossaryck."

The little blue man peered into his eye. "You're not Star."

"Nope," he admitted. Why try and hide it? "We switched bodies a little ways back. I'm Tom."

"Hmm. Well, you never answered my question. What are you doing?"

"Well, the spell book ate the wand, which ran into Marco, and now all three of them are trapped in Star's closet, which won't open." He tried to turn the knob again, to prove his point. "Hey, Marco, found anything?"

The human grunted. "Nope. What's all this stuff in here, anyway?"

Tom shrugged, then he realized Marco couldn't see that. "No clue. That's Star's 'secrets closet'. I don't keep stuff in there." Well, that was a lie, but Marco didn't need to know that.

Glossaryck went back through the keyhole, and Marco must've grabbed him or something, because then he said, "Aha! What's going on? Is this some kind of training thing or something?"

"Are you some kind of training thing? Are you mad? Is this wolf-kabob rock bandage ba-ba-bandage . . ."

"Stop, stop. Stop it! Just tell me how to get out of here."

"Okay, I'll tell you what to do. Are you listening?"

"Yes, I'm listening."

"To reach the chunks in the hobo stew, find his secret. That's the clue."

"So if I find his secret, the door's just gonna magically open?"

"Good-bye!"

Tom couldn't help but say something. "Secret? What secret? I already told you, I don't keep anything in there!" He peered through the eyeholes, managing to look at Marco if he got on his tiptoes. "Is he always like this?"

"Yeah, basically," Marco confirmed, much to Tom's annoyance. "I don't know if you have anything in here, but I guess I have to look, so, sorry? Maybe? I don't know." Then the human must've walked away, because their conversation suddenly stopped.

Tom went back to looking for the key. Glossaryck lazily floated in the air as he struggled. "Why don't you try the easy way and open the door with magic?"

". . . you can't do magic without a wand? And it's stuck in the closet."

The little blue man floated in front of him. "Oh, but you can. Do you wanna try the hard way?" His eyes filled up with black, which was pretty terrifying.

Tom couldn't help but feel a little concerned. "I don't know. Do I?" Glossaryck nodded, and he sighed. "Okay. What's the hard way?"

"First, go inside my eyeball." He blinked, a little more than a little confused, but whatever. When he stopped paying attention, suddenly he was on a little platform in a purple gem world with Glossaryck and a cauldron. He blinked again, but just accepted it. "Imagine the universe as this big old cauldron, and magic is the bubble stew inside."

"Um . . . okay."

"No talking! Your wand is the spoon. And now, the spoon can only skim the surface of the hobo gravy, watery and brown. But if you want to get the chunks, you've got to dip down." He threw the spoon away and shoved his hands in, and they came back out with a big pile of meat and stuff. "Get it?"

He frowned. "So, what you're saying is . . . if I want to get a better level of magic, I can't use the tool? I have to channel something inside myself?"

Glossaryck nodded. "You're much better at this than Star."

He smiled just a little bit, and then with a poof, they were back in Star's room. He guessed they had always been there, but he'd just been hallucinating. "Okay, so how do I . . . dip down?" He focused. So . . . did that mean it was mostly about emotions?

An idea came to him. If he learned to control his anger, did that mean he could harness it to do this higher-level magic?

He concentrated, focusing on that small bit of anger that was always in him. He thought about how it was his fault that he was here, that he'd always been so manipulative of Star, that he'd been a real jerk for so long. Maybe that would've called for guilt in someone else, but he just found anger. Anger at himself.

It swelled inside him, coming to an emotional crescendo, and he felt his cheek marks shift again. He tried to take it out on the closet door, but it didn't work. He just collapsed again, the anger vanishing and the cheek marks going back to hearts.

Had he dipped down at Ludo's castle? Was that why he'd managed to break the glass that one time?

He grabbed Marshmallow and sat the bunny down in his lap, narrowing his eyes at the closet door. Okay. He'd already unpacked his earlier anger, so maybe it had to be something new. He was mad at Glossaryck for being so vague, mad at the stupid door for locking, mad at the wand for malfunctioning.

Nope. It wasn't enough.

He sighed and collapsed back on the ground in frustration, though that wouldn't be enough, either, he was sure. His eyes fell on the mirror, and he thought about that. The only person he could think of who might be able to help him was Queen Moon, but . . .

Okay. Yeah. Time to stop worrying about it and to just suck it up and call her.

He wiped off the mascara as cleanly as he could manage, then, as clearly as he could, he said, "Call Mom." (He hadn't bothered to change Star's contact names.) A moment later, he was greeted by the queen's face.

"Star?" she asked.

"Uh, yeah, hi. So, um, Marco got locked in the closet with the spell book and wand, and Glossaryck told me to dip down, and I think I know how to do it, but I can't generate enough emotion to manage it."

She blinked. "Dip down? I didn't learn that until I was nineteen."

He blinked as well. "Whoa. So I'm ahead."

"I suppose."

"But yeah. My idea was that it was based off of emotions or something, but I can't get it strong enough to work."

"Yes, it's not easy. But if you want to dip down, you have to summon everything you have."

He thought about that for a second. "So, like, if I want to use anger, I have to use everything that can make me angry?"

"Yes, that about sums it up."

Okay. That wasn't helpful in the slightest. "Alright. Bye." He signed off and continued trying, since apparently that was the only way he would do it.

Marco yelped, and there was the sound of something falling on his head. "Whoa! Marco, you okay?" Tom asked, startled.

"Yeah, yeah . . . this little book hit me on the head."

Book? Tom frowned.

"It looks like it's in Demon." He sat up, startled, and tried to peer through the cracks. "Oh, here's English. 'Chapter one: Well. I'm an idiot.'"

Oh, he knew what that was. "Oh, that's nothing. I don't keep any secrets in there."

He continued to read, though. Eventually, he got to "'Chapter Eleven: My thoughts on . . . Marco?" Um, okay. He hadn't written anything important in there, though, had he? Just the usual stuff. That he didn't understand why Marco liked nachos, that he laughed every time he made a really bad pun, that he . . .

Oh, fudge. Oh, no. No, no, no, now he remembered what he put in there. That he really liked the way Marco styled his hair. That it was cute how he freaked out whenever his stuff was unorganized. How it was stupid that he obsessed over Jackie.

Separately, they were just harmless comments. But together, he finally realized his own stupidity.

He liked Marco. He liked Marco.

It was the stupid Blood Moon Curse's fault!

He rose into the air, feeling his cheek marks glow and change to the fireballs again, and his eyes were glowing, too, and he knew that he was dipping down. A key of fire appeared in the lock, and it opened, and Marco fell out, bath towel and all.

"I did it," he murmured, though his mind was a little more focused on something else.

The book rolled out and opened, and he snatched the wand back up from inside it. "Well, that thing's broken, but give it a whirl," Glossaryck said.

The second he focused on using magic, a bunch of glittery green goo exploded from it, and there was another little tower. Tom and Marco exchanged a shocked, and very green, look.

"I'm gonna go put on some pants," Marco said.

Tom nodded. "You go do that."

Then he went and screamed into his pillow, managing to dip down again and clean up himself and the room. He liked Marco. Seriously?! Because he'd swapped bodies with Star just before the blood moon came out, it was his soul that had gotten tied to Marco's. Which meant he was compelled to like him.

He groaned again at his own stupidity, and stuff started flying around. Oh. So apparently, dipping down was easy when he realized he'd really screwed up!

He just screamed some more into the pillow until eventually, he fell asleep, smudged mascara and all.